According to Blizzard, World of Warcraft has never been influenced by Activision. Eventhough Activision publishes Blizzard’s popular MMO, the game’s director emphasized Blizzard’s independence as a studio. Tom Chilton participated in AMA on Reddit where he defended Activision, claiming that the company gets an “unfair reputation”.
“I’ll come out and say it, Activision gets an unfair reputation among our players for this, as does Boddy Kotick. We do demos for the Activision executive team about twice per year. They ask intelligent questions about why we’re doing what we’re doing, but at no point have any mandates about the game’s design been issued.”
Blizzard and Activision are gearing up for a big World of Warcraft launch later this month. Mists of Pandaria will be the first major expansion for the game since the Cataclysm launch almost two years ago.
